


Drowning

by Eloisa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 01:45:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloisa/pseuds/Eloisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate timeline, Catelyn goes back to Winterfell at Robb’s instigation during ACOK – just in time for Theon’s invasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's an AU. I don't generally do AU. However, in this instance I was specifically challenged to write Theon/Catelyn, and this seemed the best way to make the pairing work, so my apologies to any other purists.

Hinges creaked like a dragon’s scream.Catelyn started out of sleep and half-sat, rubbing her eyes at the sudden shaft of lamplight.

 “What’s wrong?” she demanded.News of Torrhen’s Square?News of Robb?But her sleep-itching eyes finally saw the man in the doorway.Not a Winterfell guard: a stranger, dressed in leather and iron and carrying a dirk.A stranger, in her bedchamber – “Leave my room at once,” she hissed.

 “We’re not here to harm you, my lady,” said a familiar voice.Theon Greyjoy elbowed past the strange man and entered the room.He’d dressed in a commoner’s plain clothing and wore a black cloak over his light armour.

 Catelyn sat up straight and pulled the furs up to her throat.Suddenly she saw it all: a diversion, a strike.“Greyjoy.I told Robb not to trust you.”

 His arrogant smile cracked for a second.“Leave us, Werlag,” he ordered.The man with the dirk withdrew.

 Catelyn did not move.Outside the keep she heard the direwolves howling.“How did you gain entry?”

 “Four men swam the moat, climbed the walls and let in the rest. _Four_.”

 She tried to watch him with a dispassionate eye.“Are you a dog, then, that you need a pat on the head for every clever trick?”

 Quick anger crossed his face.He ran a hand through his messy black hair.“My men are rousing the castle.If you love your sons, you’ll tell Bran to order the servants to obey me and mine.”

 Catelyn shivered in the warm room. _If you love your sons._ “I see.I see you have discarded the last traces of decency you had.We gave you a home and our trust.”She gestured to him, heedless of the hand he had placed on his sword hilt.“Leave.I must dress.”

 For a moment she feared he would refuse, but he granted her a cold bow and backed out of the room.She threw back her bed furs and went to her wardrobe for a gown.She could not let him harm Bran and Rickon.She _would_ not.

***

 Too many were dead: Mikken, Alebelly, poor Septon Chale.Catelyn had taken to spending hours at a time in the ruined sept.If she prayed for long enough, the Mother would tell her how to help her sons.

 At least she had their company, and that of the strange, quiet Reeds.It gave her some solace.

 The ironborn men defiled her home.Not only had they desecrated the sept, they drank the stored ale, took whatever jewels pleased them, took whatever _women_ pleased them, though at least Theon had had the decency to flog one or two of the men for that.But Theon had had the effrontery to take some common girl into Ned’s bedchamber.It was hard enough knowing that he slept there, but...

 The wolves were howling in the godswood again.The sound was so familiar that it no longer disturbed Catelyn’s sleep, though it had no need to do so, while errant thoughts left her turning over and over in her bed.

 The bird to White Harbour would have arrived by now – surely Lord Manderly would get word to Ser Rodrik within a few days, and Ser Rodrik had more men than –

 Her door crashed open.“My lady,” Theon slurred from the doorway.He was leaning on the jamb, barely able to stand upright.She saw one of Ned’s few medallions round his neck, one she’d once gifted her husband on his name-day.The sight ripped something within her.

 “Leave my chamber, you black-bellied snake,” she snapped.

 “It’s _kraken_.”He pushed off the doorframe and stood, weaving slightly.“Kraken, prince of the North, Lord of Winterfell.We drowned the direwolf.”

  _I hear two wolves still howling out there._

 “Lord of Winterfell,” he repeated with a little laugh.He came a step closer.“And you’re Lady of Winterfell.Where does that leave us?”

 Fear as icy as the winter’s winds gripped her spine.“You –” she began.

 “My lady?”She looked past Theon.Maester Luwin stood in the doorway, clutching the castle’s great housekeeping ledger to his chest.“I wonder if you could inspect our records with me.The extra expenditure of the past days is threatening our winter stores, and –”

 Theon growled under his breath.He stalked to the door.The effect was ruined by his stagger.“Have a care, maester,” he threatened, and then he was gone.

 Luwin slowly lowered his book-shield and set it limply on Catelyn’s bedside table.“My lady, are you all right?” he whispered.

 She nodded.At some point, soon, she would stop shaking.“Thank you for intervening.”

 “I cannot always be so timely.”He tugged at his neck-chain and shook his head.“I beg you, bar your chamber door when you sleep.”

 “I will –”She stopped.The furs slipped from her hands and for a moment she sat half-naked against the night.“I cannot anger him.He might hurt my sons.”

 Maester Luwin looked shocked.“An act so utterly devoid of honour –”

 “He drowned his honour along with our septon, or before,” she said bitterly.

***

 They did not speak of the incident thereafter.Catelyn was icily correct with Theon: he was stiff and formal with her.She watched him direct his men to guard the castle, and wondered what he expected to do when Ser Rodrik inevitably arrived.She could do nothing but talk with Bran, and play with Rickon, and pray.

 A week passed.

***

 It was late, and the stars burned bright over Winterfell.Catelyn slowly walked to her chamber through the near-silent castle.Her candle seemed to raise shadows in the corners.They flickered in time with the wolf-song – which was quieter than normal.Summer was sleeping, perhaps, leaving Shaggydog to howl alone.

 She’d spent two hours on her knees amid shards of glass from the ruined windows.Maybe if she prayed for seven hours, the gods would answer.The ironborn men boasted that they had drowned the Seven, as they’d drowned their septon – as Catelyn felt that she had drowned in her tears, since the day Robert Baratheon had chosen to come to Winterfell.

 She trudged into her chamber and leant on the door: “Something must change soon,” she murmured.

 “Something will.”

 She started and raised her candle.Theon was reclining on her bed, dressed only in breeches and a belted tunic.She groped behind her for the door handle.

 He scowled.“Don’t run away.”He rose and walked to her.He did not appear to be drunk this time.

 Catelyn backed away from him and the door, holding the candle before herself like a shield.“Did you tire of your tavern wench?”

 He shrugged.“I tire of wenches quite easily.Oh, they’re soft and pliable, but the simpering gets on my nerves.Ironborn women are harder.More interesting.”

 She felt her lip curl.“I have heard tales.”

 Theon laughed.“Tales both tall and true, I’ve no doubt.Did you fear any man could mistake you for a good salt wife?”

 He was less than a foot from her.She could not retreat further without colliding with her bed.“What do you want?”

 “A truce.”

 “And more?”

 “Come on.Lord Eddard’s been dead most of a year.Did you want to spend the rest of your days itching for a man’s cock?”

 His crudeness made her itch only to slap him.“What you suggest is an obscenity fit only for your tavern whores.”

 “Try this, then.”He snatched the candlestick and set it on her bedside table.“Bed me, wed me, and help me cement my claim to the North.I’ll make Bran and Rickon my heirs until you bear me a son.”She saw him smile in the faint candlelight.“They can even have Winterfell back in their own right, once that’s happened.What will our sons need of it, when they have Pyke?”

 Catelyn controlled herself with an angry shake. _What I would give to see him torn apart now!_ “Wedding precedes bedding on the mainland, _Prince_ Theon.”

 He smiled.Did he think he had won?Simply because he held the power –“My sister’s coming with reinforcements.They’ll easily defeat your ‘rescuers’.Asha had my uncle with her: my uncle, the _priest_ – so if wedding follows bedding this time, it will not do so by very long.”

  _Reinforcements –_

 And she saw what she had to do.

***

 Some time later, Catelyn lay awake in the dark, listening to Theon’s gentle breathing.It matched the beat of the guttering candle on the bedside table.His breath was warm on her bare shoulder.

 Theon had been more eager than gentle, but she’d found herself responding in kind.Each had torn the other’s clothing: her body, she knew, was covered in finger-marks where he’d held her under him, and she’d scratched his shoulders and his back as he worked between her legs.He’d laughed at the scratches, and driven harder into her, till her body had surprised her by responding wholeheartedly to him.Her mind, though –

 Conflating him even for a second with Ned would have sullied every night she and her husband had ever spent together.She was glad that she had made no such error.

  _“You’ve such beautiful hair,”_ Theon had mumbled as he’d fallen asleep beside her.

 Ned had rarely slept the full night at her side.The room had always been too hot for him.

 Catelyn rose from the bed without waking Theon and walked naked to the closest narrow window. _How loud the direwolves howl._ She pulled back the tapestry.Moonlight dripped through the shutter slats; she pushed open the window and autumn’s chill soaked into her warm bedchamber, as it had into her heart so many moons ago.

  _My lord father, my uncle, my brother, my husband; they were to keep me safe.But here and now I have none of them, no shield but myself, no other sword to defend my sons._

 She turned and stared at the bed, and the pile of Theon’s clothes strewn at its foot, around and atop her ruined gown. _I pray you will forgive me, Ned._

***

 Dawn was still some hours away.Catelyn, curled on the window seat with one of Ned’s old robes wrapped around her, was roused from her reverie by the barest breath of air behind her.Her door was inching open.

 She looked.It was the leather-tough wildling woman, Osha, peering into the moonlit room with a spear clutched in her right hand.The woman stared at the bed for a few seconds, and then looked around the room until she seemed to see Catelyn at the window.

 Osha closed the door as quietly as she had opened it and tiptoed to Catelyn’s side.“Did he hurt you, my lady?” she whispered.

 “What are you doing here?”

 “I came to see if you wanted me to kill him.”

 Catelyn stared into the hard face above her, rose and took Osha’s left hand.She guided her to the bed and laid the wildling’s hand on Theon’s neck.Osha recoiled for half a second and then turned over the slack, chill body.The blood that had gushed from Theon’s throat where Catelyn had driven his own knife into it seemed black in the half-light.

 Osha shook herself.“You can’t be found here.I’ll see you away.”

 Catelyn did not move.“How many times have you turned your cloak?”

She snorted.“Fewer ‘n _him_.”She straightened.“You stay here, you’ll die, and your boys too.Get them and run, and give yourselves the chance.”

 And what had they left to lose or win but their lives?“All right.”


End file.
